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I had followed the case since the beginning. Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. (Intri

I had followed the case since the beginning. Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. (Intriguingly, many pro-Rittenhouse voices were arguing that he was guilty of the gun charge, though some were a bit more eagle-eyed and read the statute the way the judge ultimately did when he dismissed it.) The interesting thing about Rittenhouse is that even despite the NYT telling the truth through their video analysis, the rest of the press and tech monopolies ratcheted the story in one direction: that Rittenhouse was a "mass shooter" who was carrying out a white supremacist terrorist attack. During the trial, my overlapping bubbles either had seen the videos and/or watched the trial and believed him innocent, or had only read the media reports, and believed him guilty. Given the weird nature of this case, and how only one viewpoint about it was allowed on social media, I wonder if that constitutes defamation on the part of the social media companies, since they were in practice making an editorial decision that he was bad. That said, I doubt any courts would ever actually find that section 230 does not shield tech monopolies when they do this, but I am curious.

GhettoComputers 5y ago
I’m really susprised if they didn’t watch the videos and read about the case. Most people watch video now so is it possible they avoided all videos or they just didn’t believe the videos? Nobody I know didn’t watch the videos.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  I linked my friends a youtube video of someone doing a legal analysis after the verdict. After watching, they expressed surprise that the incidents were recorded.
- hajile 5y ago
  They claimed Rittenhouse shot someone who had their hands up and showed a picture. This was wrong for at least two reasons. First, they deceptively cropped the gun out of the image. Second, the video they refused to play clearly shows (contrary to the implication) that Grosskreutz wasn't shot until later when he pointed his gun. Likewise, the videos shown on most media networks were very selectively edited to remove any bits that might hint at self defense. Very few of the "Kyle is a murderer" crowd have seen the actual full-length, unedited videos of what happened.
  - Maursault 5y ago
    > Very few of the "Kyle is a murderer" crowd have seen the actual full-length, unedited videos of what happened. If I can translate, your claim is that they are uninformed, which is plainly a fallacious argument. Just how could you know this? This is kind of an unrelated rant, but it reminds me just a little of Justice Scalia pulling a random and made up statistic out of his hat, something he couldn't possibly know about what most Americans believe that, oh yeah, was patently false, and used it to desecrate the 2nd Amendment, without 2/3rds majority of both houses of congress nor state legislatures, i.e. not the proper self-described way literally writ in the Constitution itself, and in fact beyond the scope of the Supreme Court's domain, effectively turning what Founders intended as a selfless right to fight tyranny into something the Founders debated and explicitly decided against including within the 2nd, a selfish, unimpressive and frankly mostly expressed cowardly, right of defense of self and/or property. It was far better before becoming redundant, as the right of self-defense predates the Constitution by some time, and the decision very uncharacteristic of Scalia, a life-long literal Constitutionalist, raising questions of senility and competence, especially because he died soon after. And it is merely one right among many that had been eroded around that time, including habeas corpus, the 5th and 6th Amendments, at least. I've watched all the videos. I still think these deaths were felony murders. I think Rittenhouse is a coward like George Zimmerman. I know this is unrelated, but there were several accidental shooting deaths recently, little kids, babies, and the list of mass gun killings is astoundingly deep and still grows. The list of uncontested gun victims is massive. Where are their rights? Does a bunch of people's vane fascination with deadly weapons supersede an innocent person's right to exist? It is a fact that less guns leads to less gun deaths, and we will be much better off as society with what would be far smaller lists of mass punchings, kickings, pokings, stabbings and axings. It'd be more interesting to read about a malcontent that had punched 14 people before being subdued by authorities. We can, actually, outlaw guns, and it would cause less gun deaths and less gun crime, but we can never outlaw fists, and everyone knows you shouldn't hit people.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      > We can, actually, outlaw guns, and it would cause less gun deaths and less gun crime This is a fallacious argument, criminals don’t follow gun laws.
judge2020 5y ago
is there case law that shows defamation for omitting facts? It sounds like such a precedent could make anyone guilty of defamation if they only cover news when it’s first announced and not when more info comes out about the news.
- UnpossibleJim 5y ago
  I think the argument would be (and I'm not sure how they could prove such a thing) that they were not omitting facts, but actively suppressing facts and allowing the spread of (what ended up to be) misinformation. I'm not a lawyer, of course, and playing Monday morning QB of sorts. EDIT: Though, I think this only applies to news sources, which they've been ruled to be not as. Though that ruling may be overturned if they actively suppress certain information.
- cryptonector 5y ago
  The policy that the facts must be omitted might be an act of defamation, or, because it was published, libel.
  - gpm 5y ago
    The policy was suposedly that "we will [...] remove content containing praise or support of Rittenhouse", that's not a policy of removing or omitting facts, that's a policy of removing opinions. Facts are neither praise nor support. Facebook is entitled to only repeat whatever opinions it wants to repeat, by virtue of the first amendment.
    - esyir 5y ago
      Sure, and once it's making it's own opinion dominant, it should no longer be treated as a platform, but a publisher.
      - gpm 5y ago
        I mean, that "distinction" doesn't exist under current law - you can be both, or neither. Facebook is both. Even if you amended the law to create such a distinction though, attempting to place companies under it based on whether or not they moderated based on viewpoint would be a content based restriction on speech, and violate the constitution. The government isn't allowed to punish people (including groups of people such as companies), or remove privileges, based on the content of speech, with very narrow exceptions.
BobbyJo 5y ago
Not a lawyer, but I find it highly improbably that section 230 would shield them in this case. It's trivial to think of a scenario where the removal of information constitutes the production of a message, and in that scenario, the information is not itself produced by third parties using a platform, but by the platform itself. Like, if I write a note that reads: "The President of the United States should morn those that die of COVID." And the note is posted by someone else with "morn those that" removed, they can no longer point to me as the producer of the message. Likewise if video footage is edited to show a different story than reality, the person that did the editing is culpable for the resulting hoax, not the videographer. I think the same applies to editing information produced by multiple other people. The moment you edit information to conform to a certain narrative, you are then the source of that new narrative. In that way, I think Facebook, though they were editing the information available on their platform, are in fact the source of a new narrative that exists in the negative space of their editing. It would indeed be super interesting to see this argued in court. It would make a really good balance to the free reign that platforms have now to curtail certain messages or information. If they were responsible for the story the surviving information creates, it would make them tread more carefully when censoring users.
- itsdrewmiller 5y ago
  Generally speaking the court doesn’t rule on actual situations based on hypotheticals, unless they are creating a bright line rule that would clearly fall apart under plausible scenarios.
  - BobbyJo 5y ago
    They rule based on analogy though, which is how I tried to structure my comment.
gpm 5y ago
> Given the weird nature of this case, and how only one viewpoint about it was allowed on social media, I wonder if that constitutes defamation on the part of the social media companies, since they were in practice making an editorial decision that he was bad. You yourself acknowledge that it is a "viewpoint", or the term more common in law an "opinion". Opinions are protected speech by the first amendment (not section 230) and as such Facebook cannot be liable in any way for promoting one or silencing another. To be liable for defamation, you would need to be stating false facts with reckless disregard for the truth (or malice, if Rittenhouse counts as a public figure), not just promoting an opinion. This is regardless of section 230 (which might or might not provide them further protection).
TrispusAttucks 5y ago
It appears he has a great case against CNN and perhaps even the POTUS. Expect CNN to lose yet another court case for defamation and misinformation with a huge payout. Social media and corporate news outlets should let the courts do their job. They are constantly wrong and can't even get basic facts right. It's all about the narrative and the party line backing up the benefactors. How did they become arbitraters of truth?
trhway 5y ago
>Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. my understanding is that you can't claim self-defense if you initiated violence yourself. Threatening unarmed people with a gun, pointing it at them is a credible threat of violence that the people have the right to defend themselves from, and that is what they tried to do in particular by chasing that gun wielding moron away. Unfortunately that aspect seems to have been totally overlooked.
- mrkstu 5y ago
  Except he never pointed a gun at anybody that wasn’t already threatening/chasing him.
  - trhway 5y ago
    pointing gun isn't necessary. As we know from for example many police shootings mere presence of a gun even at a minimally tense situation is usually already perceived as a threat even by well trained and used to guns people.
    - perryizgr8 5y ago
      > pointing gun isn't necessary. If you threaten a person with bodily harm, I think it is reasonable to point a gun at them to get them to stop. Would you voluntarily get bashed in the head with a skateboard if you were in that position?
      - trhway 5y ago
        if you're an active shooter in a populated place i think you're extremely lucky to get only slightly bashed in the head as normally much worse things would happen to you.
        mrkstu 5y ago
        Again, cause and effect backwards here. He was attacked previous to any trigger pulling.
joshuamorton 5y ago
This is an interesting conclusion, because as I understand it this is only really true in some states. Wisconsin's self defense law is more permissive than many, and so Rittenhouse probably couldn't have used the same defense as easily in many states. In other words, it's not "plainly obvious", and this comes down to the context beyond the moments before he shot people. Wisconsin law says you can ignore that context, and that self defense is self defense even if you create the situation that requires deadly force or are the aggressor. Wisconsin law has exceptions to this, that allowed Rittenhouse to use self defense despite having himself escalated. This is a bad thing for a few reasons (two people who both shoot each other can legitimately claim self defense, taken not much further and Ahmaud Arbery's killers could claim self defense after he reached for their gun to defend himself), and anything but "obvious".
- hajile 5y ago
  > This is an interesting conclusion, because as I understand it this is only really true in some states. Wisconsin's self defense law is more permissive than many, and so Rittenhouse probably couldn't have used the same defense as easily in many states. Let's look at the five rules of self defense as they apply pretty much everywhere in the US. The last one is the big difference in Wisconsin. * Innocence (was he there to commit a crime or hurt someone) -- Rittenhouse was generally there to help people. The altercation was started because he put out a fire. * Imminence (was the use of force against him about to be used) -- The video shows Rosenbaum cornering him and lunging. The gunpowder stippling pattern shows that Rosenbaum's hand was on the barrel of the gun too. He shot at Maurice Freedman (jump kick man -- his identity was known to the prosecutors, but they hid his identity) who was in the process of trying to kick his face in with heavy boots. He shot at a guy assaulting him with a skateboard. Finally, he shot someone pointing a gun at his face. * Proportionality (not excessive force -- in this case, only deadly force can be stopped by deadly force). I don't know of any state where grabbing a gun, pointing a gun, hitting someone with a skateboard (they weigh around 11 pounds -- a baseball bat weights around 2 pounds), or trying to crush someone's face aren't considered deadly force. * Reasonableness (would any other reasonable person in that situation fear for their life) -- If you were a naive teenager (or even an adult) and an adult said they'd kill you and then waited until you were alone to chase you into a corner, would you be afraid? Would you wonder if you were about to die? * Avoidance -- this is the different one. Some states have clear stand your ground law. You never have to retreat from a fight if you are defending yourself. Some states have castle doctrine which says you have to retreat on the street, but not in your home or it's curtilage (the frequently used area around the house). Some states say you must retreat first in all situation up until you are completely cornered. 38 states are stand your ground. A few more like California, Illinois, or Oregon have castle doctrine. only a handful in the Northeast have duty to retreat everywhere. Now, even if there were a duty to retreat, Rittenhouse did this too. He ran away until he was cornered and only then (and with Rosenbaum mid-charge) did he shoot the gun. Likewise, he did not shoot his gun at the others until he'd been hit in the head with a rock and collapsed to the ground a few steps later in the middle of retreating to the safety of the police line. TL;DR -- This shooting would have been justified even in states with the most strict self-defense laws.
d1sxeyes 5y ago
Rittenhouse shot and killed 2 people, and shot and injured a third. Both of the men Rittenhouse killed were unarmed. I accept that every shot Rittenhouse fired fell within the framework of self-defence under the law. I also accept that he did have a legal right to be in Kenosha. Whether he had a legal right to be carrying the gun or not is a little more contentious. Although his possession of the gun was in line with the letter of the law, it seems likely from the wording that the exception was intended to apply to minors hunting and is poorly written, rather than an intentional decision to allow 17 year olds to carry AR-15s. Poorly worded laws are read in favour of the defence, which is why the gun charge was dropped. He likely would not have been allowed to buy or possess the gun in his home state. But whatever the legality, I don't think it's right that a guy can go tooled up to another city, kill two unarmed people, and pose for celebratory photos with white supremacists afterwards. The flow of information today is too fast to wait for definitive, legal judgements on every case, and balancing free speech, opinion, and commentary against spreading false news and inciting hatred is an incredibly challenging task. In the aftermath of the shooting, it seems Facebook implemented their 'mass shooting' playbook, which is, from my perspective, completely reasonable. Facebook choosing not to allow praise or support for a killer is, in my opinion, sensible and logical. Once it became clear that the killings were not illegal, then Facebook removed these restrictions. I'm not exactly an ardent defender of Facebook's policies, but in this case, especially given that none of the facts are in contention, I think Facebook did the right thing.
- throwntoday 5y ago
  Am I understanding correctly that you believe because the two people attacking him were unarmed, he did not have the right to shoot them? You say you "accept" it was lawful, but it doesn't seem like you believe it should be. I wonder if two "unarmed" people were attacking you, would you just let them beat you to death? I can't understand this train of thought at all.
  - willcipriano 5y ago
    One was "unarmed" with a blunt weapon and the other threatened to kill Kyle prior to his attempt to steal his gun. Had Kyle not shot him, he rapidly would've became armed.

GhettoComputers 5y ago

I’m really susprised if they didn’t watch the videos and read about the case. Most people watch video now so is it possible they avoided all videos or they just didn’t believe the videos? Nobody I know didn’t watch the videos.

bcrosby95 5y ago
I linked my friends a youtube video of someone doing a legal analysis after the verdict. After watching, they expressed surprise that the incidents were recorded.
hajile 5y ago
They claimed Rittenhouse shot someone who had their hands up and showed a picture. This was wrong for at least two reasons. First, they deceptively cropped the gun out of the image. Second, the video they refused to play clearly shows (contrary to the implication) that Grosskreutz wasn't shot until later when he pointed his gun. Likewise, the videos shown on most media networks were very selectively edited to remove any bits that might hint at self defense. Very few of the "Kyle is a murderer" crowd have seen the actual full-length, unedited videos of what happened.
- Maursault 5y ago
  > Very few of the "Kyle is a murderer" crowd have seen the actual full-length, unedited videos of what happened. If I can translate, your claim is that they are uninformed, which is plainly a fallacious argument. Just how could you know this? This is kind of an unrelated rant, but it reminds me just a little of Justice Scalia pulling a random and made up statistic out of his hat, something he couldn't possibly know about what most Americans believe that, oh yeah, was patently false, and used it to desecrate the 2nd Amendment, without 2/3rds majority of both houses of congress nor state legislatures, i.e. not the proper self-described way literally writ in the Constitution itself, and in fact beyond the scope of the Supreme Court's domain, effectively turning what Founders intended as a selfless right to fight tyranny into something the Founders debated and explicitly decided against including within the 2nd, a selfish, unimpressive and frankly mostly expressed cowardly, right of defense of self and/or property. It was far better before becoming redundant, as the right of self-defense predates the Constitution by some time, and the decision very uncharacteristic of Scalia, a life-long literal Constitutionalist, raising questions of senility and competence, especially because he died soon after. And it is merely one right among many that had been eroded around that time, including habeas corpus, the 5th and 6th Amendments, at least. I've watched all the videos. I still think these deaths were felony murders. I think Rittenhouse is a coward like George Zimmerman. I know this is unrelated, but there were several accidental shooting deaths recently, little kids, babies, and the list of mass gun killings is astoundingly deep and still grows. The list of uncontested gun victims is massive. Where are their rights? Does a bunch of people's vane fascination with deadly weapons supersede an innocent person's right to exist? It is a fact that less guns leads to less gun deaths, and we will be much better off as society with what would be far smaller lists of mass punchings, kickings, pokings, stabbings and axings. It'd be more interesting to read about a malcontent that had punched 14 people before being subdued by authorities. We can, actually, outlaw guns, and it would cause less gun deaths and less gun crime, but we can never outlaw fists, and everyone knows you shouldn't hit people.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    > We can, actually, outlaw guns, and it would cause less gun deaths and less gun crime This is a fallacious argument, criminals don’t follow gun laws.

judge2020 5y ago

is there case law that shows defamation for omitting facts? It sounds like such a precedent could make anyone guilty of defamation if they only cover news when it’s first announced and not when more info comes out about the news.

UnpossibleJim 5y ago
I think the argument would be (and I'm not sure how they could prove such a thing) that they were not omitting facts, but actively suppressing facts and allowing the spread of (what ended up to be) misinformation. I'm not a lawyer, of course, and playing Monday morning QB of sorts. EDIT: Though, I think this only applies to news sources, which they've been ruled to be not as. Though that ruling may be overturned if they actively suppress certain information.
cryptonector 5y ago
The policy that the facts must be omitted might be an act of defamation, or, because it was published, libel.
- gpm 5y ago
  The policy was suposedly that "we will [...] remove content containing praise or support of Rittenhouse", that's not a policy of removing or omitting facts, that's a policy of removing opinions. Facts are neither praise nor support. Facebook is entitled to only repeat whatever opinions it wants to repeat, by virtue of the first amendment.
  - esyir 5y ago
    Sure, and once it's making it's own opinion dominant, it should no longer be treated as a platform, but a publisher.
    - gpm 5y ago
      I mean, that "distinction" doesn't exist under current law - you can be both, or neither. Facebook is both. Even if you amended the law to create such a distinction though, attempting to place companies under it based on whether or not they moderated based on viewpoint would be a content based restriction on speech, and violate the constitution. The government isn't allowed to punish people (including groups of people such as companies), or remove privileges, based on the content of speech, with very narrow exceptions.

BobbyJo 5y ago

Not a lawyer, but I find it highly improbably that section 230 would shield them in this case. It's trivial to think of a scenario where the removal of information constitutes the production of a message, and in that scenario, the information is not itself produced by third parties using a platform, but by the platform itself. Like, if I write a note that reads: "The President of the United States should morn those that die of COVID." And the note is posted by someone else with "morn those that" removed, they can no longer point to me as the producer of the message. Likewise if video footage is edited to show a different story than reality, the person that did the editing is culpable for the resulting hoax, not the videographer. I think the same applies to editing information produced by multiple other people. The moment you edit information to conform to a certain narrative, you are then the source of that new narrative. In that way, I think Facebook, though they were editing the information available on their platform, are in fact the source of a new narrative that exists in the negative space of their editing. It would indeed be super interesting to see this argued in court. It would make a really good balance to the free reign that platforms have now to curtail certain messages or information. If they were responsible for the story the surviving information creates, it would make them tread more carefully when censoring users.

itsdrewmiller 5y ago
Generally speaking the court doesn’t rule on actual situations based on hypotheticals, unless they are creating a bright line rule that would clearly fall apart under plausible scenarios.
- BobbyJo 5y ago
  They rule based on analogy though, which is how I tried to structure my comment.

gpm 5y ago

> Given the weird nature of this case, and how only one viewpoint about it was allowed on social media, I wonder if that constitutes defamation on the part of the social media companies, since they were in practice making an editorial decision that he was bad. You yourself acknowledge that it is a "viewpoint", or the term more common in law an "opinion". Opinions are protected speech by the first amendment (not section 230) and as such Facebook cannot be liable in any way for promoting one or silencing another. To be liable for defamation, you would need to be stating false facts with reckless disregard for the truth (or malice, if Rittenhouse counts as a public figure), not just promoting an opinion. This is regardless of section 230 (which might or might not provide them further protection).

TrispusAttucks 5y ago

It appears he has a great case against CNN and perhaps even the POTUS. Expect CNN to lose yet another court case for defamation and misinformation with a huge payout. Social media and corporate news outlets should let the courts do their job. They are constantly wrong and can't even get basic facts right. It's all about the narrative and the party line backing up the benefactors. How did they become arbitraters of truth?

trhway 5y ago

>Having watched the videos, it was plainly obvious that in each case, Rittenhouse was acting in self-defense. my understanding is that you can't claim self-defense if you initiated violence yourself. Threatening unarmed people with a gun, pointing it at them is a credible threat of violence that the people have the right to defend themselves from, and that is what they tried to do in particular by chasing that gun wielding moron away. Unfortunately that aspect seems to have been totally overlooked.

mrkstu 5y ago
Except he never pointed a gun at anybody that wasn’t already threatening/chasing him.
- trhway 5y ago
  pointing gun isn't necessary. As we know from for example many police shootings mere presence of a gun even at a minimally tense situation is usually already perceived as a threat even by well trained and used to guns people.
  - perryizgr8 5y ago
    > pointing gun isn't necessary. If you threaten a person with bodily harm, I think it is reasonable to point a gun at them to get them to stop. Would you voluntarily get bashed in the head with a skateboard if you were in that position?
    - trhway 5y ago
      if you're an active shooter in a populated place i think you're extremely lucky to get only slightly bashed in the head as normally much worse things would happen to you.
      - mrkstu 5y ago
        Again, cause and effect backwards here. He was attacked previous to any trigger pulling.

joshuamorton 5y ago

This is an interesting conclusion, because as I understand it this is only really true in some states. Wisconsin's self defense law is more permissive than many, and so Rittenhouse probably couldn't have used the same defense as easily in many states. In other words, it's not "plainly obvious", and this comes down to the context beyond the moments before he shot people. Wisconsin law says you can ignore that context, and that self defense is self defense even if you create the situation that requires deadly force or are the aggressor. Wisconsin law has exceptions to this, that allowed Rittenhouse to use self defense despite having himself escalated. This is a bad thing for a few reasons (two people who both shoot each other can legitimately claim self defense, taken not much further and Ahmaud Arbery's killers could claim self defense after he reached for their gun to defend himself), and anything but "obvious".

hajile 5y ago
> This is an interesting conclusion, because as I understand it this is only really true in some states. Wisconsin's self defense law is more permissive than many, and so Rittenhouse probably couldn't have used the same defense as easily in many states. Let's look at the five rules of self defense as they apply pretty much everywhere in the US. The last one is the big difference in Wisconsin. * Innocence (was he there to commit a crime or hurt someone) -- Rittenhouse was generally there to help people. The altercation was started because he put out a fire. * Imminence (was the use of force against him about to be used) -- The video shows Rosenbaum cornering him and lunging. The gunpowder stippling pattern shows that Rosenbaum's hand was on the barrel of the gun too. He shot at Maurice Freedman (jump kick man -- his identity was known to the prosecutors, but they hid his identity) who was in the process of trying to kick his face in with heavy boots. He shot at a guy assaulting him with a skateboard. Finally, he shot someone pointing a gun at his face. * Proportionality (not excessive force -- in this case, only deadly force can be stopped by deadly force). I don't know of any state where grabbing a gun, pointing a gun, hitting someone with a skateboard (they weigh around 11 pounds -- a baseball bat weights around 2 pounds), or trying to crush someone's face aren't considered deadly force. * Reasonableness (would any other reasonable person in that situation fear for their life) -- If you were a naive teenager (or even an adult) and an adult said they'd kill you and then waited until you were alone to chase you into a corner, would you be afraid? Would you wonder if you were about to die? * Avoidance -- this is the different one. Some states have clear stand your ground law. You never have to retreat from a fight if you are defending yourself. Some states have castle doctrine which says you have to retreat on the street, but not in your home or it's curtilage (the frequently used area around the house). Some states say you must retreat first in all situation up until you are completely cornered. 38 states are stand your ground. A few more like California, Illinois, or Oregon have castle doctrine. only a handful in the Northeast have duty to retreat everywhere. Now, even if there were a duty to retreat, Rittenhouse did this too. He ran away until he was cornered and only then (and with Rosenbaum mid-charge) did he shoot the gun. Likewise, he did not shoot his gun at the others until he'd been hit in the head with a rock and collapsed to the ground a few steps later in the middle of retreating to the safety of the police line. TL;DR -- This shooting would have been justified even in states with the most strict self-defense laws.

d1sxeyes 5y ago

Rittenhouse shot and killed 2 people, and shot and injured a third. Both of the men Rittenhouse killed were unarmed. I accept that every shot Rittenhouse fired fell within the framework of self-defence under the law. I also accept that he did have a legal right to be in Kenosha. Whether he had a legal right to be carrying the gun or not is a little more contentious. Although his possession of the gun was in line with the letter of the law, it seems likely from the wording that the exception was intended to apply to minors hunting and is poorly written, rather than an intentional decision to allow 17 year olds to carry AR-15s. Poorly worded laws are read in favour of the defence, which is why the gun charge was dropped. He likely would not have been allowed to buy or possess the gun in his home state. But whatever the legality, I don't think it's right that a guy can go tooled up to another city, kill two unarmed people, and pose for celebratory photos with white supremacists afterwards. The flow of information today is too fast to wait for definitive, legal judgements on every case, and balancing free speech, opinion, and commentary against spreading false news and inciting hatred is an incredibly challenging task. In the aftermath of the shooting, it seems Facebook implemented their 'mass shooting' playbook, which is, from my perspective, completely reasonable. Facebook choosing not to allow praise or support for a killer is, in my opinion, sensible and logical. Once it became clear that the killings were not illegal, then Facebook removed these restrictions. I'm not exactly an ardent defender of Facebook's policies, but in this case, especially given that none of the facts are in contention, I think Facebook did the right thing.

throwntoday 5y ago
Am I understanding correctly that you believe because the two people attacking him were unarmed, he did not have the right to shoot them? You say you "accept" it was lawful, but it doesn't seem like you believe it should be. I wonder if two "unarmed" people were attacking you, would you just let them beat you to death? I can't understand this train of thought at all.
- willcipriano 5y ago
  One was "unarmed" with a blunt weapon and the other threatened to kill Kyle prior to his attempt to steal his gun. Had Kyle not shot him, he rapidly would've became armed.